Mayorkas Redefines — but Still Fails to Comply With — the ‘Operational Control’ Mandate
As the Biden administration ‘pauses’ the ‘Border Wall System’, wasting billions
By Andrew R. Arthur on March 31, 2023
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week at its annual “Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security” hearing. “Fiery” is a good description, but there was one particularly notable exchange between the secretary and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) in which Mayorkas redefined his statutory “operational control” mandate to secure the Southwest border as “maximizing the resources we have to deliver the most effective response”. The secretary redefining statute is problematic enough, but the bigger issue is that neither Biden nor his DHS secretary is complying even with that watered-down “Mayorkas standard”, because the president is wasting money and authority Congress gave DHS for border security.
“Operational Control”. The operational control mandate comes from the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (SFA), which was passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress and enacted on October 26, 2006.
The SFA gave the DHS secretary 18 months to “take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States”.
Congress didn’t give DHS any leeway in implementing this provision, instead explicitly defining the term “operational control” as follows: “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband”.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Mayorkas-Redefines-Still-Fails-Comply-Operational-Control-Mandate
